What Is Data Theft?
Data theft is the unauthorised or accidental destruction, removal or modification of confidential information. Data can be stolen by hackers, by physical theft or may be destroyed due to human error or natural disasters. Corporates, as well as government agencies, can have significant harm due to data loss. This can lead to financial, reputational and legal damages. Organisations should implement strong security measures for protecting the corporate data. The IT and HR teams can work together to create a proper offboarding system for this purpose.
Importance Of Restricting Access To Data
It is important to restrict access to data and systems when employees leave. Usually most of the employees leave on good terms, but even one employee with bad intentions can cause great damage. It is important to ensure that employees have access to data according to their job roles. Following are the reasons why the restriction is important:
Spreading misinformation
Employees with bad intentions may use their former employer’s network of email IDs to spread misinformation among customers and suppliers. This can ruin a company’s brand reputation and can cause damage to business relationships.
Shut down operations
An employee having access to manufacturing equipment and systems may shut down the production operations. This can derail the whole process of manufacturing and create a crisis.
Halting business
Former employees may delete key data or information that can make your business offline. This may cause your business to come to a halt.
Customer poaching
Theft of customer contact lists can result in customer poaching. This can also cause theft of confidential company or customer information. This can include project plans, payments and other sensitive information.
Tips For Protecting Your Corporate Data When An Employee Leaves
Organisations should put in place strong IT solutions to protect business data. Here are some IT solutions that you can implement:
Having a data security policy
It is important to have a well-documented data security policy in place. This policy helps to raise awareness in the employees of their responsibilities and obligations to protect sensitive data. They should also know the consequences they will have to face in the case of data breach or misuse of data.
Auditing employee behaviour
Put policies in place to keep an eye on how employees are using corporate resources, such as computers and mobile devices, and establish criteria to review their behaviour. This will help to identify the suspicious behaviour of the employees. If you suspect any employee, the IT team can use its monitoring and auditing practices to track their digital activities.
Providing limited access
One of the easiest yet most efficient ways to protect your company’s data is to have restricted or supervised employee access to data and information. You may decide who has access to important data and information. This can be done using access controls like role-based permissions and password protection.
Regular backups
It is necessary to regularly back up your data. This process of backing up will help you to restore data if there is a case of data loss. IT team should ensure that the backup data is stored in a secured location and is encrypted.
Exit interviews
HR and IT teams should create a proper offboarding process for the employees who are leaving. It is important to conduct exit interviews to identify if there are any potential data breaches or theft. Departing employees should be asked to return company-owned devices. Remind them of their confidentiality obligations.
Take back devices
The company should ask the departing employees to return all company-owned devices, such as laptops, tablets, smartphones and external hard drives. If they are unable to return them, you can also disable or revoke their access to any company apps, systems, cloud storage and data.
Review permission and controls
Employees have access to various systems, applications and data according to their job roles and needs. IT team should review the permissions and controls including shared accounts, VPNs and Wi-Fi networks. Additionally, you can modify the security settings or passwords for all systems, apps and data to guarantee that important information is only accessible to authorised persons.
Security tools
Protect sensitive data from outside threats and insider risks by implementing security measures including intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS), multi-factor authentication (MFA) and data loss prevention (DLP).
Use data encryption
Encryption is the best way to safeguard data from unauthorised access. It helps to keep the data safe even if it falls into the wrong hands. The file-sharing platforms should be secured to ensure that employees can share files without risking data breaches. This aids in keeping an eye on data activity so you may spot any odd behaviour or unauthorised access.
Offboarding checklist
Creating a standardised offboarding checklist helps to complete necessary tasks when an employee leaves. This checklist includes completing paperwork, disabling network access and recovering company assets. It guarantees that all unresolved issues are appropriately resolved by including all possible security breaches in the list.
Employee Habits That Pose A Threat To Security
Sometimes, employees unknowingly engage in practices that can pose a serious threat to the corporate data and confidential information. These are some common mistakes made by the employees:
Poor password
Creating poor passwords can compromise security in your business. Most of the employees make the same password for multiple accounts. That is a risk since compromised login information for one account can be used to gain access to all other accounts. Employees should set up multi-factor authentication if it is available and create unique passwords for every account.
Personal browsing and downloads
Generally, employees use company devices for personal use. Some of the sites they access can lead to cyber-attacks on the company. Downloading files could end up downloading malware into the office network. Companies should use company blacklisting to solve this problem.
Using public Wi-Fi
Using public Wi-Fi like that at the airport or a coffee shop is not safe. Cybercriminals can steal data from this public Wi-Fi. Ask your employees not to use public hotspots.
Company data on personal devices
Employees personal devices may not have the same security defences as that of company devices. This can allow cyberattackers to steal sensitive company data and information. Do not allow personal devices to be used for company work.
Phishing scams
Phishing scams are another method in which inattentive staff members may put cybersecurity at risk in your company. Train your employees to recognise phishing scams.
Warning Signs
The company should look for warning signs that indicate suspicious behaviour from the departing employees. These are some signs to look for:
- Data in the network is backed up on personal storage devices or transferred to individual cloud accounts.
- A sudden rise in email correspondence.
- Employees exchanging messages with unidentified suppliers or businesses the company does not do business with.
- The ability to access the firm database after regular business hours.
- Workers deleting files from their devices before departing the company.
Employees are free to leave their positions and find new roles in another company. Employees come and go; that is the nature of the business world. Unfortunately, whether on purpose or inadvertently, many departing employees steal or destroy company information. Therefore, you must be proactive and take the required steps to safeguard your data when your staff leaves. The consequences of failing to do so can be terrible. While implementing additional specific safeguards to protect your data may depend on your particular organisation, starting with adhering to this basic list of principles is a great way to start.
